This past Thursday the World Health Organization (WHO) let out a report that said that people who experienced "Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer but one so small it probably won't be detectable." The article says that after the disaster, the chance of cancer for people most effected by Fukushima, would only increase by 1 percent. These risks aren't much of a threat to the Japanese population but, originally, WHO had made the claim that women exposed as infants to the accident would have a 70 percent chance of getting thyroid cancer. Seeing as thyroid cancer is extremely rare, the lifetime risk of of getting this cancer would only increase by .5 percent for women who were the most exposed to this radiation. Several other people have done the math on this topic and have made claims that people are more at risk by crossing the street than they are at risk for their chances of cancer to increase. The article says that WHO was originally hyping up the risk of cancer in Japan because they didn't take into account how quickly Japan evacuated people from Fukushima.
This article seemed to make the same point repeatedly and which was unnecessary because it was a very simple point: WHO made the risk of the increase of cancer a lot bigger than it was. But, they also let out a report that correctly their wrong statement. The social problem here is miss-communication by the media. Our class has covered that people believe stereotypes because of the media, and people will believe false claims because of the media. For people were to believe WHO's first report, and worry about their risk of cancer increasing due to the disaster, it would hurt more than help. The good news is that WHO undone their damage and corrected the situation.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/28/slightly-higher-cancer-risk-for-those-most-hit-by-fukushima-disaster-but-risk/#ixzz2MFvnyA4e
Emma Starnes 2:39pm 3/1/2013
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